


Little Rabbit

by Momokai



Series: sweetest touch, words like song [6]
Category: The Yin-Yang Master: Dream of Eternity, 晴雅集 | The Yin-Yang Master (2020)
Genre: Accidental Baby Acquisition, Boya Is Reminded Of This Fact, Boya/TMW You Realize You're Terrible With Children, But The Implications Are There, By popular demand, Demonphobic Villagers, Except It's Not A Baby, Gen, Hippity Hoppity This Child Is Now Boya's Property, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, It Starts Dark, It's A Smol Demon Child, It's Not Just Demons, It's Not Overly Graphic Or Too Horrifying, Mind The Tags For This One, POV Child, Unbeta'd We Die Like Boya's Faith In Humanity, actual child abuse, cuteness abounds, humans can be monsters too, i give you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-12 14:54:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29636328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Momokai/pseuds/Momokai
Summary: Something inside her screams, and she freezes. /Danger/ it shrieks, like when the villagers are really angry at her and come after her with sharp things but so much worse- She knows she should run like she always does but she can’t, her legs won’t move and all she can do is clutch at her flowers and turn to see what's coming for her.Alternatively:That one time Boya let a demon go and made off with a child.
Series: sweetest touch, words like song [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2165322
Comments: 15
Kudos: 98





	Little Rabbit

**Author's Note:**

> I've been sitting on this for a hot minute ngl. I might even add a second part to it, we'll see.

She doesn't remember how she got to be where she is, she just knows that she probably shouldn't have stayed no matter how scary it would have been to leave. The villagers here don't like her very much even though she's tried to show them that she's a good girl, but no matter what she does they still call her mean names and throw things at her. They always say that one day a demon hunter will come and make her go away for good, and she knows what they mean because she's not a  _ baby,  _ she knows that they want her to die, because she's not good like them. 

She knows that she's a demon and they're human and that sometimes demons eat humans but she's not like that, she promises! She has never eaten a human in her life, why would she want to when they're always so  _ stinky _ ? She much prefers her leafy greens, especially after it rains and they're all clean and sparkly and  _ soft.  _ She learned very early to avoid the cabbage patches the villagers make and steers well clear of the food market. They always chase her away and try to hit her with things, it's so unfair! 

They don't even let her play with the other kids, always telling them to run away from her or to throw rocks when she comes too close, even though she just wants to play. 

She doesn't try to play with them anymore, but sometimes she likes to hide and watch their games. She thinks she would be very good at the hopping game they sometimes play, because jumping and hopping is what she likes to do best! _Hippity hoppity,_ _hippity hoppity_ ~

She giggles as she hops over a stone like she's seen the other kids do, and keeps hopping every other step she takes along the side of the old road, arms out at her sides as she tries to keep her balance on the imaginary line she pictures on the ground. If she can't play games with the kids in the village, then she'll make up her own games and play them! 

Hopping over another stone, she starts to sing one of the songs she'd heard the other kids chanting as they played, high, childish voice loud in the peaceful quiet of the woods, broken only by the buzz of cicadas and the occasional bird call. 

The path she takes is one rarely travelled by the villagers, more of a side trail that branches off from the main thoroughfare and snakes through the woods only to ultimately lead nowhere. Sometimes strangers get lost down it when they pass through the village but those are few and far between, meaning she gets it all to herself! Which is the best thing ever because the prettiest flowers grow along it and the lack of traffic means they always grow in big bunches, so she can pick them whenever she wants and never run out. 

Speaking of flowers, she finishes her song with a final, big hop over a fallen stick and lands right in front of her favorites. They were a new addition that had started growing on the path at the end of winter and she doesn't think she's ever seen such a pretty shade of blue before, almost like the sky when there are no clouds but not quite- she thinks this blue is her new favorite.

Rubbing her hands on her threadbare clothing to clean them of any dirt, she squats down and carefully plucks one of the flowers before bringing it to her nose, sniffing delicately and making a pleased sound. They smell so good! Humming absently, she continues to pick flowers, careful to choose some other colors as well so she doesn't pick too many from the same bunch and hurt it- until she almost has a full bouquet in her hands. So many colors and smells, and they're all good! Not like those stinky villagers at all, and they're all for her because she has long since stopped trying to share them with the people who hate her. 

Hum trailing off, she blinks down at the bunch in her hands and sniffs wetly. She had tried to give flowers to a lady once, who had been crying because her son had died in a hunting accident and she had just been trying to cheer her up, because the flowers were pretty and they always made  _ her  _ feel better. But the lady hadn’t liked them, had thrown them at her and screamed horrible things and she had run away crying because she had only been trying to  _ help.  _ She hasn’t tried to give anyone her flowers since. 

She scrubs the back of her hand over her eyes and reaches for another flower. She’s not sad, she’s  _ not.  _ Who needs smelly humans anyway, not her! She can just play in the woods and pick her flowers like she always does and everything will be-

Something inside her screams, and she freezes. _Danger_ it shrieks, like when the villagers are really angry at her and come after her with sharp things but so much _worse-_ She knows she should run like she always does but she can’t, her legs won’t move and all she can do is clutch at her flowers and turn to see what's coming for her. She expects men from the village but it’s not, it’s a stranger, and he’s dressed in fine black leathers she’s never seen before but would know anywhere because the villagers always tell her that one day a demon hunter is going to come for her and she can’t even run away, because she knows he’s going to kill her just like they said and she’s so s _cared-_

The stranger reaches for the stick strapped behind his waist and the movement is so fast she doesn’t even get the chance to flinch before she realizes it’s not a stick at all, but a  _ sword,  _ and she trembles because she can see the bright shine of metal and hear the slick sound it makes as it’s drawn and  _ she’s going to die- _

She jumps as the blade disappears from her sight with a sharp clack, eyes unwillingly darting from the sheathed blade to the eyes of its owner, and she gulps because his eyes are dark and  _ terrifying  _ even as they slowly change, until suddenly he’s looking at her like he’s never seen a child before. His hand drops away from his sword like it’s made of stone and he just... stands there,  _ staring  _ at her. 

She bolts. 

She runs as fast as she can the way she came from, heart thundering in her chest and frightened tears streaming down her face because she had nearly  _ died,  _ might still die if she doesn’t keep running-

The road is silent behind her, absent of the heavy footfalls she expects to dog her flight, and against every instinct she has screaming at her to keep  _ running,  _ she looks over shoulder and sees no one. She slows to a stop, gasping for breath as she turns. 

In the distance she can still see the stranger, and he’s made no move to chase her. He hasn’t seemed to have moved at all, just remained where he stood, staring at the place she had been only moments before until abruptly, as she watches, he turns on his heel and walks away. She stares at his retreating back until he disappears, swallowed by the reaching branches of the overgrown trail, and she is once again alone. 

The rapid racing of her heart slows, and she regains her breath. After a moment spent waiting to see if he’ll come back, she wipes her tear stained face on her ratty sleeve and promptly collapses, shaking legs suddenly turning to jelly beneath her. She hiccups, and sniffles loudly. She’s alive. She’d come face to face with a demon hunter and she’s still  _ alive,  _ the villagers had been wrong. She wipes her face on her sleeve again and shakily climbs to her feet, knees wobbling and threatening to send her crashing back to the ground until she forces them to hold her. She turns and makes her way back to the village, staggering the first few steps until her legs stop shaking and she’s walking almost normally. It’s only when she enters the village gates that she realizes she’s still holding the flowers. 

The sun sets, and the bustle of the village peters off around her as people pack up their stalls and return to their homes. Most of them ignore her entirely as she walks quietly around them, while others sneer at her or spit in her direction but she ignores them, because it’s almost normal for her now. She doesn’t know why she returned to the village when she could have slept in her little nook in the woods, but she doesn’t want to be alone. Even if it means getting chased out in the morning she wants to sleep in the barn by the inn for the night. The man who owns the barn doesn’t like her at all, but he’s not as mean as everyone else. Sometimes he lets her sleep with his chickens when it's cold or raining, and she used to leave him flowers but the goat that lives in the barn always ate them before he could see them. She never really minded, but she would much rather the silly goat not eat all of them. Maybe if the barn man is in a particularly good mood he’ll even let her take some of the cabbage he leaves out for the goat again. 

She’s just lifting the loose board on the side of the barn to wiggle inside when an angry voice startles her into freezing.

“-you mean you didn’t kill it!?” A man yells, and she lowers the board quietly to cautiously sidle along the wall and peer around the corner of the barn, curious at the commotion. She sees the man who runs the village standing in front of the shabby inn, and he’s all puffed up and red like he always gets when he’s angry at something. 

“I mean exactly what I said.” An unfamiliar voice replies flatly, and she squeaks at the sight of the demon hunter standing with the village head. She pulls her head back around the corner and presses against the barn, slapping a hand over her mouth to keep quiet. On the street, the yelling continues;

“But it’s a  _ demon  _ and aren’t you a demon hunter!?” The village leader really does sound angry, she hates it when he yells at  _ her  _ like that because he’s always so loud and she gets scared-

“It is and I am.” The stranger agrees calmly, apparently unintimidated by the man's shouting. She doesn’t know how he’s not running away, because everyone else does when he gets like this, but the stranger is arguably scarier so maybe-

“So  _ why  _ is it still alive? You found it and you what, just let it go!?” 

“Apparently.” The stranger retorts and he almost sounds like he doesn’t believe it himself. She eases away from the wall and peeks around the corner again. The village head is, impossibly, even more red in the face, and he seems to be trying to loom over the stranger but despite being slightly taller he’s somehow falling far short, and the stranger just looks...bored. She giggles, before clapping her hand back over her mouth and hiding behind the wall again. 

“What kind of demon hunter  _ are  _ you!?” The village head demands, incredulous and incensed. 

“Not a very good one.” Is the lackluster reply.

“The hell kind of answer is that?” The leader splutters, “I’m telling the Guard about this if you don’t turn your ass around and go  _ kill  _ that beast right now!” Even if the strange man is a demon hunter, actually, because he  _ is  _ one, she really doesn’t think he should be talking to him like that. The villagers had made them sound so scary and she really doesn’t want to imagine what they’d be like mad at someone. 

“No.” The stranger drawls. There’s the sound of angry blustering, and she thinks the strange man might be in for it now-

“Why the hell  _ not?  _ Are you  _ scared,  _ demon hunter? Is that it? Afraid of a little gir- _ omph!”  _ She jumps and peeks back around the corner and finds the stranger with a fistful of the village leaders collar, dragging him in close to icily snap-

“I’m not in the business of killing  _ children.”  _ The man in his grasp scoffs in his face.

“It’s not a child it’s a  _ monster-”  _

“The only monster I see here is right in front of me,  _ shall I kill it?”  _ The stranger hisses, and that seems to remind the village head of who exactly he’s angering, because he goes three shades paler. 

“Y-you wouldn’t dare, the Guard-” 

“Of which I am it’s  _ Captain  _ and if I kill you right here, right now, no one would question it. Do you understand what I’m saying?” The stranger growls, and when there is no response forthcoming, he shoves the man away. She watches, wide eyed, as he tumbles to the dirt, scuttling back on hands and feet before jabbing a finger up at the demon hunter who simply wipes his hand on the front of his leathers.

“I-I will see you  _ hanged  _ for this!” He gasps. The stranger shrugs. 

“You can try.” And with that, he strides past the man in the dirt as if nothing had happened, and disappears into the inn. The village head splutters at his back, before climbing hastily to his feet and dusting himself off. He casts one last, venomous look at the inns doors before stomping off, muttering darkly to himself as he goes. She watches it all with wide eyes. 

Her. They had been talking about her. The village head had been shouting at the demon hunter because he had... _ spared her.  _

_ “I’m not in the business of killing children.”  _ He had said, and she doesn’t think she’s ever heard someone refer to her as an actual living, feeling child before. She’s always been the demon, the beast, monster in a false skin. Something to be reviled, feared, cast out-

_ “The only monster I see here is right in front of me.”  _ She knows, abstractly, that the way the villagers treat her is unfair. She has done nothing to them but exist in the same space and they hate her for it. But the stranger who hunts her kind for a living had let her go, defended her in some small way even, and instead called another human a monster. She doesn’t think the villagers will like that. They may even hate him for it and chase him away because it’s not how things are meant to go here. Why would he do that? It’s...mind boggling. She doesn’t understand. 

Slowly, she eases away from the wall and ducks under the loose board, crawling into the barn at last, where she quietly settles on a pile of straw in the corner. On the other side of the barn the silly old goat that eats her flowers bleats. The chickens are all in their roosts, clucking quietly as they settle down for the night. She knows she should sleep while she can, because even if the man who owns the barn sometimes lets her sleep there he doesn’t like it when she lingers too long in the morning. She’ll need to leave at first light. She looks down into her lap, where she still holds the flowers she had picked earlier, and delicately sets them beside her before drawing her knees up to her chest and curling her arms around them. She drops her cheek onto her knees and sighs, eyes closing.

-

She’s awake before the first rays of morning light peek over the horizon and quietly crawls out of the barn without disturbing the chickens. The roads are clear, most everyone still in their beds, and she keeps her steps light as she does her best to sneak away from the barn without setting off the goat. She pauses before she can completely pass the quiet inn, and looks up the stairs to the closed door. She doesn’t really think about it before she turns around and picks her way back into the barn, returning to her little nest to stand over the bundle of flowers she’d left behind for the silly goat. She stares down at them for a moment, before stooping to pick them up. They’ve wilted a little during the night, stems crinkled from her fingers gripping them too tight and petals drooping, but they’re still pretty, and they still smell nice. She crawls out of the barn again, and trots quietly back to the inn. 

She’s never been inside it before- never been allowed, but she knows the guest rooms are around the side of the building, accessible from both ways and she uses that knowledge to sneak around the building, ducking under the veranda to avoid being seen despite the hour being so early and still. She creeps along under the walkway until she reaches the side stairs, and inches her way up them one at a time, bare feet pausing on each step, testing it for a creak before she ascends them all. 

Her heart races as she sidles along the veranda, legs tense and ready to spring at the first sign of anyone spotting her- because she is where she shouldn’t be and if the innkeeper finds her-

She steels herself, and continues. The first window she comes upon she stands on her tiptoes to peer into, and her lips moue in displeasure at finding the room empty. She quietly drops back down and inches her way to the next one, and then the one after that when she only finds one of the village men snoring in the bed. She almost loses hope when each window she tries bears no results, and almost forgoes the last one entirely before huffing to herself and stretching up to poke her nose in. 

Only for said nose to wrinkle at the sharp tang of wine she smells in the room. Squinting against the sour sweet scent, she peers into the room- and almost knocks her chin against the wall when she suddenly spots her quarry and reflexively goes to duck. Blinking rapidly, she shakes off the sudden wobble in her knees and peeps into the room again. 

The stranger isn’t in the bed, she notices, and she frowns perplexedly at him where he is slumped over the low table in the center of the small room, face down on its surface with long legs splayed under it in a way that simply  _ can’t  _ be comfortable, but she has seen men sleep in stranger places and in worse positions with the scent of wine clinging to them and decides that at least he’s sensible enough to do it inside. She leans against the wall, trying to raise higher on her toes to see better, but her weight pressing against the window makes it  _ creak  _ and her heart jumps into her throat as the stranger snaps upright from his boneless slump in a way that is frankly  _ scary _ , and she tumbles back onto her rump just before his head snaps in her direction. Scrambling, she quickly plops the bundle of flowers by the room's door and all but dives off the side of the veranda, not looking back as she flees the inn entirely. 

She doesn’t stop running until she reaches the village gates, and stumbles to a stop to hunch over to regain her breath and slow her thundering heart. She feels almost giddy with the desire to bolt once more, but just as before, she is not pursued. 

The sun crests the horizon, and she straightens to watch as light spills over the treetops and into the village. Already she can hear the village stirring, and almost as if responding to the new day, her tummy rumbles. She cups her belly and sighs, belatedly remembering that she hadn’t checked the goats feeding bucket for some cabbage, and it is most certainly too late now. She’ll either have to try and squirrel something away from the village or forage breakfast out in the woods. She didn’t much look forward to either prospect. Huffing to herself, she drops her hands from her rumbling stomach and about faces to try her luck in the village, only to freeze as she’s abruptly brought nose to waist with the village head, who looms over her menacingly. 

“There you are.” He growls, and terror shoots through her, because he always sounds angry when he deigns to speak to her but at that moment he doesn’t just sound angry, he sounds  _ murderous.  _ She whimpers and backs away, about to apologize, but he doesn’t let her get that far. He reaches out, snake fast, and snatches her by the arm with a grip so tight she feels her bones grind together, and she squeaks in pain. 

“I’ve had enough of you here, demon.” He snarls down at her, and her legs refuse to support her anymore when he uses his punishing grip to haul her out the gates. Horror and fear clamor inside her as she’s half dragged, half carried out of the village, and somehow she doesn’t make a sound despite the screaming in her head. She knows something bad is going to happen to her but she doesn’t know  _ what  _ because yes, the villagers hate her and hurt her but she doesn’t think they’ve ever really tried to, tried to  _ kill her  _ before. Surely that's not what he wants to do, he’s just going to throw her out and tell her not to come back again like he always does-

“-useless demon hunter. Fine! I’ll do it myself!” The man spits, and jerks her arm so hard she thinks she hears it pop. Tears spill over, and she doesn’t even think to struggle free for the terror rendering her stunned. She’s going to die after all. She’s going to die  _ she’s going to die- _

“Let her go.” The man dragging her pauses, and she looks back, blinking through her tears. She doesn’t know what to make of what her blurry eyes tell her, thinks it should be impossible, but no matter how many times she blinks the tears from her eyes the image doesn’t change. It’s the stranger, and he doesn’t even pause as he continues to walk right for them, not looking at all like he’d just been passed out on a table not long ago. The village head turns and spits at the ground, not releasing his bruising grip on her arm. Already, she can feel the skin purpling. 

“Be on your way  _ demon hunter _ , I’m doing your job for you.” He sneers, only to falter as the black clad man doesn’t even pause in his stride. She yelps as she’s abruptly dragged backwards, the man holding her backpedaling without releasing his grip as the stranger closes in, dark eyes narrowed and bearing an air of inevitability that the village head must pick up on before he suddenly lets go of her arm, only to sling his forearm under her chin instead. She gags as she’s pulled back and up and it  _ hurts _ , she can’t  _ breath-  _

“Don’t even think about it-” She hears, the sound right in her ear but still so oddly far away, before her world rocks and judders without warning, and the arm around her throat falls away. She drops, but before she can hit the ground she’s caught again, and she gasps hungrily for air even as its knocked out of her again when her belly lands on something firm and rounded-

The village head is on the ground, nose and mouth red with blood and he’s writhing in the dirt, clutching his face and screaming obscenities as she watches, dangling from somewhere far too high as she draws in lungful's of air. There’s a steel band over the backs of her legs but she doesn’t have the mind to kick it away, she’s still stunned and staring at the man jerking about in the dirt, getting further and further away with the sound of steady footfalls. 

It takes her a moment longer to register that she’s being carried away from the village, slung over the strangers shoulder like a sack of rice, and her gaze drops unbidden to the sword sheathed within arms reach of her face. She panics, and her limbs all come alive at once. 

“Will you calm down-” The stranger snaps, the steel band of his arm closing tighter over her flailing legs as she beats her little fists into his back. “I’m not going to-” She squirms and manages to kick a leg free, struggling like she could not in the village heads grasp and feels her knee connect- 

_ “Herk!”  _ She’s unceremoniously dropped to the sound of a choked cough, and she springs back to light feet and bolts. She doesn’t run for the village this time, and doesn’t stop to look behind her as she flees, has no idea where she’s going or what she’s going to do now that the village is officially no longer an option but that’s something she can figure out lat-

The only warning she gets is the sudden, rapid pound of boots directly behind her before her feet leave the ground and she’s airborne. She screams and flails against the grip that had come out of  _ nowhere  _ on the back of her ratty clothes, and kicks her trembling legs wildly.

“You’re quick, I’ll give you that.” The stranger says as he wheels her around to face him, dangling from his fist like a scruffed cat. She tries to kick him again, but misses when he just holds her further away, looking almost amused. Her legs won’t reach that far, they’re too short and his arm too long.

“Feisty, too. And here I thought you were a coward.” He says, lips twitching into a smirk as he leans his head back to avoid her foot. Her heart beats a wild staccato in her heaving chest, and she reaches up and behind her to try and dig her short, pointy nails into his arm, only to find leather. She claws at it anyway, and he snorts. She had given him flowers, she thinks wildly, because he’d let her go and got yelled at by the mean village leader for it and she thought he wasn’t going to kill her- 

“I’m not going to hurt you.” He tells her, and he looks like he means it but people  _ lie  _ and she keeps struggling. He sighs, “If I was going to kill you, I would have done so yesterday.  _ Calm down.”  _ He doesn’t sound angry or threatening when he says it, and makes no move to reach for his sword or her neck, but he doesn’t put her down either. Slowly, reluctantly, she ceases trying to kick his face, breathing heavily from the fear and exertion as he watches her steadily. After she’s still for a moment, he nods. 

“You realize you can’t go back to the village, yes?” He asks, and yes, she knows, she’s not stupid, but she doesn’t know where else to go or what else to do because she’s too small and frightened to make it out in the woods like she always wishes she could-

“Do you have anywhere else you can go? Someone who’ll help you?” He asks, and tears spring unbidden to her eyes once again as her lips wobble. He holds her further away and abruptly looks like a man holding the wrong end of an angry snake.

“No one?” He asks, and she sniffles. There’s no one. The only person she knows who isn’t always cruel to her is the man with the barn, but he won’t let her stay, and besides that he’s in the village she can’t go back to if she wants to live. 

“Shit.” He blurts, and she frowns at him, because that's not a good word, she’s seen the other kids get scolded when they say them-

“You shouldn’t say bad words.” She blurts in return, and they both stare at each other incredulously for a moment, before he snorts and finally lowers her back to the ground. The instant her feet touch the dirt, her legs tense to run, but she’s run so much already and she’s hungry and tired and she doesn’t think he’s going to hurt her after all but  _ what if he changes his- _

“I...might know someone who can help.” The stranger says, and the words sound like they’re pulled out of him against his will, because he sighs after saying them, and then grumbles something she can’t make out. Then the words register, and she blinks up at him in confusion, brows furrowing, because she’s a demon, granted one that doesn’t eat people but a demon nonetheless and  _ no one  _ ever wants to help her. 

Except  _ he  _ did, didn’t he? He saved her. 

“I’m a demon.” She says, and he grimaces.

“Don’t remind me.” He replies, and pinches the bridge of his nose, eyes screwing shut as if pained. She...doesn’t get it. He drops his hand and eyes her, taking in her loose, dark hair, grubby skin and ratty clothes, and sighs long and deep as he looks away. 

“Look. You can come with me, and I’ll take you to my friend, or I can drop you off at the next village so you can try your luck there.” He looks back at her, and raises his eyebrows expectantly, and oh- he wants her to choose? But, but she doesn’t know what the next village is like or how far it is, or what this friend of his is like or if he’d even really help her at all when he realizes what she is-

“He won’t care what you are,” The man assures her as if reading her mind, and bleakly she wonders if he can, because demon hunters are supposed to be strong and scary and they can use  _ magic-  _ “You’re like an open scroll,  _ no _ , he won’t care that you’re a demon.” He sighs again, and he seems to do that a lot. “He’ll be delighted in fact, the idiot.” The stranger grumbles the last part, sounding equal parts irritated and fond, and she tilts her head. 

“He...won’t mind?” It’s a novel concept. She doesn’t think she believes it, because people  _ always mind.  _

“No.” He replies simply, and while his face has lost most of its previous liveliness and settled into a stony politeness that something tells her might be habitual for him and not something she should take personally, his eyes are earnest, and after a moment of thought, she tentatively nods. She doesn’t have much of a choice, and he hasn’t hurt her yet despite everything, and she wants to-

He nods once in return, and then he’s striding past her, but not before his hand descends on her head in a brief, awkward pat that probably shouldn’t be as weirdly comforting as it is, but it’s a touch from another person that...doesn’t hurt. From someone who has every reason to hurt her but hasn’t. She turns, and watches him walk off, uncertain. He doesn’t look back as he calls;

“You coming or not?” She jumps, and almost trips over her own feet as she trots after him. She hesitantly falls into step a little behind and to the side of him, and knots her fingers in the trailing lengths of her hair, nervous. 

“Um, Mr.?” She asks, almost a squeak, and he grunts. Taking it as permission, she stutters out- “What’s your n-name?” Because he helped her, is still helping her even though she’s a demon, and he’s supposed to hate demons but doesn’t seem to hate her so the least she can do is address him properly or-

“Boya.” He replies, and she blinks, surprised. She stares at his side profile as they walk for several long moments, sounding the name out quietly to herself in confused glee, before she giggles. Mr. Boya jerks his head down to stare at her, and she might have felt intimidated by the look if she wasn’t already giggling up a storm, and he opens his mouth either to ask what she finds so funny or tell her to stop but she says;

“It’s funny because your name is Boya, and mine is Biyu!” She announces with a triumphant grin, and she blinks in surprise when he abruptly groans and claps a hand to his eyes, turning back to the road. 

“Qing Ming is going to  _ love  _ this.” He laments, and she giggles despite not knowing who Qing Ming is or why he’s going to love any of this but there’s just something funny about the way Mr. Boya says it. 

**Author's Note:**

> Boya, that's not how you handle children. Boya, please, Boya, put that thing back where it came from OR SO HELP ME. Jk, jk. Keep her. 
> 
> Biyu, meaning Jasper, or semi-precious stone. 
> 
> If it wasn't already immediately obvious, yes, Biyu is a bun bun. A cute, precious little bun bun who will eat all your cabbages, tremble in fear.


End file.
